Measuring the Interaction of Conflict-Minimizing and Goal-Seeking Motor Imperatives in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Sundararaman Rengarajan, Jonathan Cannon, Brendan Baron, Naren Mohan, Leanne Chukoskie

Abstract: When subjected to sensory conflict, our bodies respond spontaneously and unconsciously to reduce or resolve it. We developed a Virtual Reality (VR) phase-matching task to establish a framework for explaining behaviors under conflict using hand-tracking, eye-tracking and pupillometry. We also describe a computational model of this behavior that was designed to help us understand differences in observed behavior from autistic individuals and non-autistic peers. We expect that known differences in prediction and attention mechanisms in autism will be important for accounting for behavioral differences observed in the task, highlighting these mechanisms as targets for future intervention.